


Drift Connection

by Jennistar



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, set between Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim: Uprising, starts out happy ends up angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 16:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14240964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennistar/pseuds/Jennistar
Summary: There's a place in Hermann's head, a new place, that has been locked until now, or at least unacknowledged, and it has just opened. But it's not only in his head, is it, it's in Newton's too, and it's blue, it's really blue, it's Kaiju blue -Hermann and Newton experience problems with their Drift compatibility. Set between the last events of the first movie and the beginning of the second – my idea of how Newton ended up where he did.





	Drift Connection

 

At first they find it funny, but that's because at first it's like any other Drift connection. They barely even notice any difference for about three days, three days where they catch up on necessities like sleep, medical examinations and more sleep. Then, haltingly, it begins.

Hermann notices the change first. They're in the commissary eating their way through a heroic amount of food – although the Shatterdome donated most of its food to the Hong Kong relief effort, half of Hong Kong also seemed to decide that it needed to thank the staff for that whole saving-the-world business and has done so in the form of food hampers. The Shatterdome barely has a quarter of its staff left – after about two days of partying, most of them have gone home to spend much needed time with their families, so now there’s only a stalwart few left to tie up loose ends and eat their way through mountains of gift hampers. Hermann and Newton have spent nigh-on a decade eating meals in ten to fifteen minute bursts in between work, attempting to shovel as much in as possible whilst simultaneously arguing with each other, so once the Breach has closed, they take the idea of long leisurely lunches and firmly embrace it. This is the time where, for once, they don't fight – they just sit opposite each other with plates upon plates of whatever food has been gifted to them today and eat in companionable silence.

It is only when Hermann is halfway through a donated mushroom risotto that he realises. He freezes, fork halfway to his mouth.

“Hang on a minute,” he says. “I hate mushrooms.”

Newton is so focused on single-handedly demolishing a massive custard tart – he has never really been sold on the concept of _savoury first, sweet after_ – that he doesn't register the importance of this at first. “Just eat around them,” he mumbles through pastry, used to Hermann's whining about food. Hermann has always been a picky eater.

“No,” Hermann says slowly, eyeing his forkful of risotto. “Newton, you don't understand. I hate mushrooms, I've always hated mushrooms, but I just ate half a plate of them and I _enjoyed_ it.”

This at least gets a glance up from the custard pie. “Well, maybe your poor taste is finally improving,” Newton says with a wily grin. “Mushrooms are _great_.”

“ _Exactly_.” Hermann puts the fork down. “I don't like mushrooms. You love them. Now one Drift later and here I am tucking into a mushroom risotto without a care in the world.”

Newton pauses in his custard tart. “Huh. 'Spose we picked up stuff from each other. Well, as long as it doesn't result in me wearing hideous jumpers, I'm cool with it.” And he dives back into the tart.

Hermann stares at his risotto, attempting to fit this brand new aspect of himself into his head. “I like mushrooms,” he says wonderingly, picks up the fork and puts the rest into his mouth, then finds himself grinning of his rare grins. “I like _mushrooms,_ ” he says, and, to the surprise of everyone around him, bursts out laughing.

Half a day later, Newton finds himself sniffing a box of new chalk just to revel in the smell, then catches himself with a “holy _shit!_ ”

 

Then after a few days it's no longer amusing and starts to get a bit strange. Hermann has been able to work out – mostly – when the thoughts and random impulses in his head are his own and when they are remnants of Newton, but every so often everything seems to – _blend_.

They're back in the lab after a huge lunch (Hermann had a mushroom omelette – he can't help it – mushrooms are _fantastic_ ), and mostly all they've been doing in the last week is complete all those niggling little projects that were started and never finished due to a Kaiju attack, or a Jaegar malfunction, or anything else that Stacker Pentecost had deemed more worthy of their time. So, as always, Hermann is up on his ladder, scribbling equations onto the blackboard and Newton is elbow deep in some particularly nasty looking part of a Kaiju, singing loudly to the radio. Hermann is leaning his left hand on the blackboard, when suddenly, it... _changes_. One moment it feels cold and stiff and a little grainy with chalk residue and the next his hand is registering something that can only be described as _squidgy._

Hermann yanks his hand off the blackboard, and the feeling goes away. In silence he peers at the board, but it's just the same as always, no Kaiju guts stuck to it, nothing to account for the strangeness he just felt. Experimentally he puts his hand to the blackboard again, and there it is – a definite, lukewarm, slippery _squishiness_. And yet there is no similar feeling in his right hand.

Neurons fire in Hermann's brain. He glances behind his shoulder at Newton. The man has his left hand deep in _squidgy_ , squelchy Kaiju guts, the right bracing him against a wooden table. He catches Hermann's look and scowls.

“What? I turned the bloody music down twice already!”

_Bloody._ Newton hardly ever uses the term 'bloody'. It's quintessentially British, quintessentially Hermann.

Hermann finds himself growing, for the first time since they closed the Breach, a little concerned.

 

The next worrying event is two days later. It's nearing teatime, a word Newton uses now with no small amount of glee - “Tea _time_ , tea _time_ , we can now stop for tea because we have _time_ ” - and Hermann is just thinking how hungry he is when Newton says, “I'm hungry. Fancy some food?”

Hermann stares at him, midway through an equation.

“What?” demands Newton. “C'mon man, yay to food or nay?”

“I – ” Hermann recovers himself. “No. Thank you. I need to finish this.”

Newton snorts. “Whatever dude. I'll bring you back something.”

He waltzes out of the lab and Hermann thinks that's an end to it when he's abruptly – gripped. An enormous burst of – of fear, of panic – completely irrational and yet as real as any emotion he's ever felt in his life before – seizes hold of him. Before he knows what he's doing, he's sliding down off the ladder, grabbing his cane, because he has to get to Newton now, right _now_ , he has to get to him because – because – he _does_.

He makes it two steps before Newton comes rushing back into the lab, almost tripping over his feet in his haste. “Oh my god,” he says, and then, “Ohmygod, _ohmygod,_ ” and he runs up to Hermann and grabs hold of him, two hands sneaking under his arms to grasp hold of the back of his shirt.

Hermann reels back at the force of this, the relief – an inexplicable relief – almost crippling him. He puts a no less desperate hand on Newton's back and for about five seconds they just cling to each other.

Then Newton says, practically breathless, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Hermann looks down at his hand, where it's bunching up Newton's shirt, white-knuckled, in honest surprise. “Are you?”

“'Course I am.” Newton lets go of Hermann with clear reluctance, pulling back a little. “What the _fuck_ was that?”

Hermann tries to force himself to let go of Newton, but his limbs don't seem to want to obey him. “I don't know.” He sounds weak, as breathless as Newton, and the confusion makes him finally release Newton.

They both take a measured step back and stare at each other. “The Drift?” asks Newton.

Hermann frowns. “I've never heard about this happening to any of the others who've Drifted. I mean, there's been some reports about having to be close to each other after the first twenty four hours but this – ”

“ - This is worse than that,” Newton finishes for him. “And it's been longer since we Drifted. Yeah. Okay.” He takes another step back, and Hermann sees for the first time how rattled he is, how flushed in the cheeks. “Okay,” he says. “Well, let's try an experiment.”

Hermann finds himself leaning heavily on his cane for a moment, needing the extra support. “All right.”

“I'll leave the lab again,” Newton suggests, sounding terrified at the concept, “And we'll see how far I get before we both – ”

“All right,” Hermann repeats quickly before he can say instead _nonono, god no, that's a terrible idea please don't._

“Okay.” Newton takes another step back. “Going.”

He vanishes behind the door. It takes barely five seconds before the panic sets in again, the alarm bells screaming in Hermann's head, and he's hardly stopped to take a breath, leaning hard on his cane, before Newton is back in the room saying “No, no, no, _nope_ , stupid idea, barely ten steps, let's never do that _again_ ,” and stepping right into Hermann's space, pressing his face into his shoulder.

For the rest of the day, they don't leave a room unless it's with each other.

 

Hermann puts his foot down when it gets to the evening and the challenge of going to bed. “This is ridiculous,” he snaps, “We are not going to be forced to be in each other's presence constantly like this, I won't allow it. We'll just have to – have to sleep in different rooms and deal with it.” He doesn't say, though he's been thinking for months, even before they Drifted, that if he got Newton in his bedroom it would be very difficult to let him out again.

Newton tries to protest, but he knows as well as Hermann that if Hermann is being stubborn about something, there's very little chance of changing his mind. And since they only live across the hall from each other anyway, he has to concede it might not be as bad as it was earlier. They have a rather sulky parting, and Hermann goes to his room to shower and go to bed.

He feels it as soon as Newton isn't in his eyeline, but not as strongly as before, just a sense of worry and fear underlying everything he does. He showers, focusing hard on the tiles and counting pi to distract himself, then he tries to read for a bit, gives up when nothing goes in and decides that trying to sleep is the only thing to do.

He turns out the light. It is five times worse in the dark. Hermann stares at the ceiling, hands balled into fists, teeth gritted, telling himself he will not succumb to this foolish, meaningless panic, he will not, he will _not._ He's a scientist, he is a logical, practical man, and he absolutely will _not_ –

There's a knock on his door.

“Oh, thank fuck,” says Hermann, and practically leaps to answer it, flinging the door open. Newton bursts in, a confused silhouette in the light of the hall, before the door swings closed behind him and they're in darkness again.

It is so absolutely dark that Hermann can't tell for a moment where Newton is, and the panic seems to start up again, but then Newton's hands clutch at his arms and their foreheads bump together, and Newton is so close Hermann can feel his breath on his lips.

“This is fucked up,” Newton says.

Hermann's heart starts pounding again, but this time he doesn't think it's due to the Drift. “So fucked up,” he agrees mindlessly, and Newton lets out a little huff of laughter which Hermann can feel on his skin.

“First mushrooms, now full on swearing,” Newton says, “I'm a bad influence on you.”

Hermann feels his self control slip a little further, too far, and he has _had enough_ with being so out of control for one day, so he gently pulls away from Newton, just a little. “We'll have to share the bed,” he says.

“Fine,” says Newton, a little too quickly, and lets go of Hermann entirely in favour of groping towards the bed and dominating as much of the space as he can before Hermann gets in and kicks him to one side. There is a brief and entirely predictable struggle for command of the blankets and space, but they eventually reach a compromise and Hermann finds himself curled up against Newton's chest before he knows what's hit him.

Newton is warm, impossibly so, like a furnace, and the steady thumping of his heart is soporific. Hermann finds himself drifting off almost immediately.

Newton's fingers curl, just a little, at the nape of Hermann's neck. “Night Hermann,” he says.

Hermann grunts into that tattooed chest. “This is not a permanent solution,” he warns, trying to sound as firm and in control but aware he just sounds like a drowsy child. “Tendo's coming back in a week or so and he's the foremost expert on the effects of Drifting, we'll talk to him.”

Newton hums. “Whatever you want, Hermann,” he says, which is completely out of character, but Hermann is asleep before he can muster up the energy to challenge him.

 

For the next week they seem to find a pattern, if not an entirely easy one. They spend the day barely out of each others sight (apart from bathroom breaks, which are taken at a run whilst the other party restlessly paces the floor and tries not to have a breakdown) but act just as they usually do, bickering and insulting each other's way of life as easily as breathing, and then at night – well, they just don't talk about it. Both of them spend as much time as they can in their own rooms, but it is never long before one of them ends up at the door of the other. Hermann is faintly gratified to note that they manage to last longer apart each night, but it is slow going, and he's mostly sure it's due to their iron willpower rather than a weakening of their Drift connection.

But still – they do well. Until one day, when they don't, and everything gets ten times worse.

They're arguing, that's all, it's nothing they've not done a million times before. Halfway through the argument Hermann can't even remember what they're arguing about, that's how unremarkable the argument is, and they've once more merely reduced it to boyish insults about each other's personal appearance and character, and Hermann is loudly declaiming about certain 'kaiju groupies' and 'self destructive narcissistic obnoxious idiots with bad taste in tattoos', and that's when Newton grabs hold of his collar, hauls him forward and – kisses him.

Everything stops. Everything. Hermann would think his own heart had stopped except he can hear it raging in his ears, a constant crash-crash-crash, and then Newton steps right up to him, chest to chest, and tilts his head to deepen the kiss and now Hermann can't even hear his own heartbeat anymore. The world twists, then turns, focussed first on that simple contact between their mouths, and then suddenly it's falling away to something else, something further, deeper and darker than just a kiss could produce, something _more –_

There's a place in Hermann's head, a new place, that has been locked until now, or at least unacknowledged, and it has just opened. But it's not only in his head, is it, it's in Newton's too, and it's blue, it's really blue, it's _Kaiju blue –_ and Hermann can see it – he can see a fall of dark – and a blinding blue _precipice_ – and he wants to fall over it – he wants to _fall_ –

One of them gasps, Hermann is not sure who, gasps into the other's mouth, and it's enough for Hermann to pull himself away, in his head and in reality, yanking himself a few steps backwards from Newton and opening his eyes, which he didn't realise were closed until now.

Newton is flushed – really flushed – and sweating, and his hair is sticking every which way, and Hermann can't recall running his hands through it, but he must have, and Newton's eyes are dark, very dark, when he steps towards Hermann again.

Hermann flings out a hand and says, “Ah!” He means to say more, but his vocal cords seem to have seized up, his throat is sore and his lips are burning and feel bruised – how long were they kissing for? It felt like mere seconds but he's as emotionally wrung out as if it were hours.

Newton stays where he is, obediently, but there's a grin unfurling on his face, one that Hermann doesn't entirely like the look of. “Did you feel that?” he says. “Hermann, do you know what that _was?_ ”

“I have no idea,” Hermann says, as steadily as possible, retreating as quick as he can back into his trusty stuffed up shell, “What just happened.”

Newton screws up his nose disbelievingly. “Come on Hermann, yes you do. It wasn't just you and I who Drifted, the Kaiju too – ”

“Stop,” Hermann says, shaky again, because Newton has taken another step forward. “Newton, hang on a minute – ”

“No,” says Newton, and steps up to Hermann's outstretched hand, so it's splayed against his chest. “Hermann let's try it again.”

Newton's eyes are dark, too dark, perhaps too dark for this earth, and there's an enormous – and not entirely earthly – part of Hermann that calls to it in return, that just wants to turn his outstretched hand into a fistful of Newton's shirt, so he can pull Newton back, into his space, into his gravity and _try that again, let's try that again –_

“Stop,” says Hermann again, and his own voice seems to shock him out of whatever that was, bringing him back to himself again. “Stop it, Newton.”

Newton shakes his head. “No,” he says and pushes forward, leaning his entire weight against Hermann's crumbling grip, so Hermann does the only thing he can think of.

He runs.

He runs as fast as it's possible to run without a cane, which he leaves in a blind panic, but he runs anyway, and doesn't stop until he's back in his quarters and is slamming the metal door behind him. He leans his back against it, and that's when his bad leg folds itself underneath him and he slides as delicately as he can to the ground, head resting against the metal door.

Instantly the now familiar and irrational panic, the fear, the worry of leaving Newton behind, _why did he leave Newton behind he can't do that don't leave Newton no_ , threaten to flood him, but he balls his hands into fists and hits the metal floor with them.

“No,” he says aloud, and now he's looking for it, he can feel the alien threat beneath the panic, implacable, unstoppable. He strikes his fists on the floor again and says, more firmly, “ _No._ ” And then he does it again, and then again, and then again, until he hears a scuffling on the other side of the door and Newton's voice says, sounding weary but at least like himself, “Not _cool_ dude.”

Hermann tries to calm his racing heart. The panic subsides, at least most of it does.

“Come on man, please come out,” Newton says. “This feels horrible. I promise I'll be good, look I've got your cane and everything.” A solid thump against the door proves this fact.

Hermann scratches his good knee, feeling about twenty years younger than he is. “Newton, what the hell was that?”

“I don't know.” Newton at least sounds like he means it. “I've never – and then when I felt it – I just wanted to find out _more_ , you know? You're a scientist, you get it.” There's a guilty pause. “But I might have gone a bit far there, yeah?”

Hermann lets out a laugh despite himself. “Just a bit, Dr Geiszler.”

“Okay,” says Newton. “Well, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Scout's promise. I was actually a scout too, you know, for like a summer until I got kicked out for arguing with the scout leader.”

“I know,” says Hermann, who saw it when they Drifted, and felt Newton's smug triumph when it turned he was right about whatever he'd taken affront to. “If I open the door, you'll behave?”

“Don't worry,” Newton snorts, putting on his favourite impression of Hermann. “Your purity shall not be besmirched, m'lady.”

“Oh shut up,” says Hermann and levers himself to his feet with help of the door, opening it slightly. Newton pokes the cane through the crack, like an olive branch of peace, and Hermann takes it, rearranges himself around it, and opens the door properly.

Newton is grinning, a sort of crooked grin, the sort he wears when he is actually deeply worried that he's upset Hermann but is trying to make light of for both their prides, but the grin falls into genuine concern when he sees Hermann properly. “Hermann,” he says, sounding properly panicked at last. “Dude. Your nose – ”

Hermann feels something warm trickle down from his nose, and when he raises his fingers to it, his fingertips come away bloody. “Oh,” he says, then looks up at Newton to see the same is happening to him, a steady crimson stream suddenly trickling down to his lip. “You too,” he says, pointing with his bloody hand, and Newton frowns, going through the same crude methods that Hermann has. When he sees the blood on his own hand, something seems to click in his head. He looks up at Hermann.

“Right,” he says decisively. “Now we really do need to talk to Tendo.”

 

Tendo is definitely a bit surprised, on his return, to be kidnapped by a pair of grim-faced K-Scientists and practically frogmarched to the lab rather than peppered with genial questions about his wife's health and brand new baby, but like everything with Tendo, he just goes with the flow and figures it will work out in the end.

Hermann and Newton sit Tendo down in a chair in the lab and immediately flood him with information, often correcting each other, butting in with further information and at one point dissolving into a seemingly irrelevant argument that takes at least ten minutes to be resolved. At one point it's just excruciatingly embarrassing for all involved.

_(“And then,” says Newton, “We – um – ” And he glances at Hermann, who rolls his eyes._

“ _Oh just tell him, for Gods sake.”_

“ _Er, we kissed.”_

_Tendo's feels his face light up with unholy glee. “Holy_ shit _, so it_ didn't _happen at that Breach Closure after party! Ha! Mako owes me twenty bucks! She was so certain!”_

“ _Twenty – ” Newton splutters, “Have you been_ betting _on – ”_

“ _Newton, this is irrelevant. It's what happened, um, during – ”)_

But even with the juicy stories, eventually Tendo has to hold up his hands and call a halt to the proceedings.

“Woah – guys – woah, okay, so you're saying there's something wrong with your neural connection?”

“Well, duh,” says Newton, just as Hermann says, “Precisely.”

“Right,” Tendo says. “Well okay, I can't tell you anything for certain until you Drift properly with our equipment. You know we haven't got the records from the time you Drifted, not even when Newton Drifted on his own.”

“Fine,” Newton says eagerly, but Hermann blanches.

“That's not – ” he says, “Is that the best idea? It's bad enough after one Drift – ”

“Yeah, thanks dude, must be _awful_ being in my head,” Newton spits, but Tendo says,

“I understand your concerns Hermann, but if it is as you say and the Kaiju part of your Drift is messing with you two – well, there's only one way to be sure, and I need to look at the records to confirm it. You won't have to be in the Drift long, I swear.”

Hermann is pale, but he nods. “Will Hansen even allow it?” he asks.

Tendo shrugs sadly. “Herc will allow anything these days guys. I don't know if you've noticed but he did just lose his only child.”

A pair of almost identical guilty looks flitter across both Hermann's and Newton's faces – they've clearly been so obsessed with this that they almost forgot everyone else. Honestly, Tendo thinks, what a couple of self-centred, smitten fools.

 

Hermann allows himself to be strapped into the Pons the next day with only the minimum of bitching, though he is fairly sure his nerves are clear to everyone, since Tendo keeps patting his shoulder kindly. Newton, though, is too excited to notice anything, he has been leaping around since Tendo suggested a Drift the day before, and had been chattering late into the night just hours before, to Hermann's constant irritation.

He's also more than a little worried about Newton – the man is clearly willing to hurl himself into the Drift head-first and Hermann knows better than to flatter himself that Newton just wants to get into his mind again. He remembers Newton's flushed face and dark eyes, he remembers the _precipice_. He is solidly determined to use everything in his power to drag Newton away from that precipice this time, kicking and screaming if necessary. Kicking and screaming is kind of their forte, after all.

“Okay guys,” Tendo says. “Fifteen seconds until neural handshake.”

Tendo counts down. Hermann is hit with a fresh burst of nerves, and his hand is flying out to grab Newton's wrist before he can stop himself. Newton looks quickly at him, then gives him a reassuring smile, gently shakes Hermann's grip off his wrist, then takes his hand firmly instead.

“Got you,” he says.

Hermann smiles back – and then the neural handshake hits them.

It doesn't take long, as Tendo promises, barely enough time to even register the images flooding past them, let alone chase the RABIT, but even in that small amount of time, Hermann notices Newton's mind separating from him, going further down, deeper, towards the _Kaiju blue_ –

“No!” he says, both out loud and in his head, and Tendo is saying something as well, garbled in the rush, but it's something urgent, so Hermann grips Newton's hand, as hard as he can, as hard as anything and bellows, both with his voice and his mind, _don't you dare leave me, you ridiculous kaiju groupie, I swear to god –_

And then Newton comes to, gasping, and Tendo is shutting down the system, and Newton looks down at both of their hands and winces. “ _Ow_ ,” he protests, wresting his hand free. “Fucking hell, Hermann, you could have broken my fingers you fucking idiot – ”

“I am not the fucking idiot, you are the fucking idiot, you fucking idiot,” Hermann snarls, beside himself. “Just what the hell were you thinking – ”

“Gents,” Tendo's voice says measuredly over the speakers. “There's a time and a place for this argument. Now get over here, you're going to want to see this.”

 

They stand, peering over Tendo's shoulders, at the different graphs in front of them. Hermann can see that Newton is already a little flustered, just from their short time in the Drift, his eyes a little glassy. Hermann wants to grab his hand again, crush him back into reality, but Newton is deliberately holding himself a little apart from Hermann, as if he read his mind.

Maybe he did.

“See, look,” says Tendo, pointing at three different coloured graphs on the screen, which are all moving and bleeping like ECGs. “That was all of you in the Drift. Hermann, you're yellow, Newt, you're red, and this blue graph – ” he traces a barely moving blue line with a not entirely steady finger, “That's the Kaiju.”

Both Hermann and Newton lean forward. “So it is there,” says Hermann.

“Very much so,” Tendo says. “It's not as strong as your signals – see how yours leap up and down more, how they're very almost in sync? - but it is definitely there. Now watch what happened when Newton started Drifting closer to it.”

He points at a place in the graph. Newton's signal drops dramatically, but as it does, the Kaiju signal leaps upwards at the same rate, until they're almost touching. Hermann is overwhelmed by the urge to shake Newton by the shoulders until his teeth rattle.

“Holy shit,” Newton breathes, and he sounds more excited rather than terrified and yes, Hermann really is going to shake him.

“There's another thing,” Tendo says, and he turns to them, looking them face on. “I've seen a lot of Drift compatibilities in my time guys, but yours is one of the strongest I've ever witnessed.”

Newton gapes at Tendo, and Hermann would find his expression funny if he weren't doing the same thing.

“I _highly_ doubt that,” he says.

“Yeah, me and Hermann hate each other's guts – ”

“Hermann and _I_ – get it right, Newton – ”

“ - We fight all the time, right, that can't be normal,” says Newton.

Tendo snorts. “Are you kidding me? Newt, how do we test for Drift compatibility?”

“In the,” says Newton, and his expression clears. “In the Kwoon Combat Room.”

“Exactly,” says Tendo. “We make people fight. You do realise that people similar to each other are more inclined to fight first than those fundamentally different to each other? You two are more similar than you realise.”

“We are _not_ similar,” Newton and Hermann say in unison, then glare at each other.

Tendo grins. “You two are adorable,” he says. “But you're putting me off track. What I'm trying to say is, whilst your connection is one of the strongest I've seen, it's also one of the most unstable. That's why you were feeling things blend into each other. You're all over the place even as your strength means you should be stable, and I think I know why.”

“The Kaiju,” says Hermann, realising.

Tendo nods. “My theory is that the Kaiju part of the Drift, that Kaiju brain – it's exploiting your deep connection to each other to try and break through. Especially when it's – uh – _especially_ strong.”

Hermann remembers the kiss and hopes to God he is not blushing.

“Why?” asks Newton.

“I don't know. Maybe to take over. But it explains why your connection is so strong but also so unsteady. The Kaiju is trying to use that strength for its own means.”

Newton's eyes narrow thoughtfully. “Maybe it wants to communicate.”

“Uh.” Tendo looks up at Newton, for the first time more than a little concerned. “Mmmaybe...I wouldn't advise you go further with this though, no matter how scientifically interesting it is. We just closed one Breach, we don't want another one. In fact I'd advise you go completely the other direction.”

There's an awkward pause, and Hermann feels his stomach tighten in warning, a warning he should have seen coming but was trying not to.

“What do you mean?” Newton asks, suddenly sounding unnerved for the first time that day.

“Well,” Tendo fiddles with a piece of paper, abruptly not meeting their eyes. “I mean a complete split with each other. No contact at all. At least for a good long while. Studies have proven that the Drift connection between partners lessens immensely when they spend time apart. We humans are fickle things – out of sight and eventually out of mind, even with the Drift getting involved.”

There's another awkward silence. Hermann does everything in his power not to look at Newton.

“I'm sorry guys,” says Tendo, sounding genuinely sorry at least. “I know that sucks.”

“So – ” Hermann says, surprised by how rough his voice sounds. “We have to forget each other?”

Newton next to him goes very still.

Tendo nods. “Only for a year or so, though. The Drift effects should have almost gone by then. Though on some levels it will always remain. It never vanishes completely.”

I really need to look at Newton now, Hermann thinks, and is turning his head to do just that, when Newton suddenly says, “Well – I mean, I have had a job offer I was thinking of taking.”

Hermann's head whips round. “You have?” He's shocked. They haven't discussed what they were going to do next at all – Hermann for his part has been pretending that nothing will change, that they'll always be sharing a lab together in the depths of the PPDC. It hasn't even occurred to him until now that this was extremely wishful thinking on his part. He's surprised at himself – he's not usually this slow.

“Yeah,” says Newton, not looking at him, eyes focussed somewhere in the middle distance. “With Shao Industries.”

“Shao – ” Hermann frowns. “Isn't that a private start-up company?”

“Yeah.” Newton turns to look at him properly, and his face is glowing with excitement, a different excitement to this Kaiju rubbish, but still unnerving in its own way. “I mean it is now, but give it a decade, I reckon it could be amazing. It's run by Liwen Shao you know, she's incredible, I think it's going to have great potential, and Hermann, you should see the _salary_ – ”

Hermann makes a dismissive noise he didn't mean to make. Newton falters. “Anyway, I mean it's just – it's probably a good idea, right?”

Hermann stares at Newton, who at least stares back, if uncomfortably. Tendo is starting to look like he wishes he was anywhere else but with them.

“In theory,” Hermann hears himself say slowly. “But in practice we can't be ten steps away from each other without having panic attacks, how are we meant to not even communicate for a year or so?”

“Oh that's probably the Kaiju brain part,” puts in Tendo. “Trying to keep you together so it can break through. I doubt it can keep it up for long though, after twenty-four hours apart you'll probably calm down again and get over it.” He considers. “Or go insane,” he adds, and gives them a cheeky grin.

“Great, thanks Tendo,” Newton says, eyes wide.

“But – ” Hermann starts, then stops, wondering why he's trying so hard to fight against something that seems like a very solid theory. Logically, it works, and Hermann has always been a fan of logic. So why is he fighting this?

“Hermann, it all works out,” Newton says, sounding like the impersonal logician out of the pair of them for once. “We should a least give it a try.”

Hermann stares at Newton, feeling his stomach sink for no reason – and every reason. “You – you'd really be fine with just – forgetting each other?”

Newton half shrugs. “It's not like we have a choice, is it?”

“I didn't ask that,” Hermann says, more sharply than he intended, but he's panicking now, a completely different panic to the usual Drift-fuelled panic. “I asked if you're fine with it.”

Newton has been staring back out in the middle distance, his brow furrowed, but at this he turns and looks Hermann dead in the eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “I am.”

Hermann feels himself go numb. Newton looks away, pats Tendo on the shoulder. “Thanks dude. Give your kid a big hug from me,” he says, and leaves without a single look back.

Hermann is frozen in place. Tendo lets out a big breath of air. “Damn, that was cold,” he says. “Sorry, man.”

And Hermann can find absolutely nothing to say in return.

 

That night Hermann lies in bed, sleepless due to the usual panic and now also sleepless due to what Newton said to him. He wants more than anything to get up and go to Newton's room, just to stop the constant worry and fear gnawing at him, but Newton's words have pinned him in place, pinned him in the dark alone.

So he's more surprised than anyone to hear the bedroom door being quietly pushed open and closed again. Newton's warm body, solid and memorable, creeps into the bed and immediately tries to steal all the covers. Hermann snatches his half back, wishing he could scream at Newton like he usually does, but nothing is coming out.

After a pause, Newton says, in a very small voice, “You're mad at me.”

Hermann rubs his forehead. The panic and worry might be gone for now, but sharing a bed daily with Newton would give even the most patient man a headache. “I don't know why you're here,” he says at last.

Newton fiddles with the covers, his fingers dropping onto Hermann's shoulder. “There's another way,” he says. “A way that means we don't have to be apart.”

Hermann feels himself tense up. “No, Newton.”

Newton's fingers also freeze. “Hermann, you're a scientist. Plus you Drifted with a Kaiju before. I know you're curious.”

“Newton,” Hermann says, as calmly as possible. “Shut up.”

But Newton has never known when to stop, with anything. “I know you want to go over that precipice, I know a part of you does because I've _seen_ it Hermann, okay, I've felt it – what if we did completely merge with that Kaiju, you know, let it through? Think what we'd learn, think what we'd _see_ – Hermann, you've Drifted with one before, why's this so different?”

Hermann snaps. He twists in the bed, grabbing Newton's jaw with both hands, feeling Newton jump with the sudden movement. “I Drifted with the Kaiju before to help _you_ , you fucking idiot! It was the worst experience of my entire life and it will give me nightmares for the rest of my life, but I did it to help _you_ because I love you! That's the difference!”

Newton goes very still. Hermann can feel the man's pulse in his neck, where some of his fingers lie, fluttering fast. If Newton says anything more, he will kill him, he really will.

“What if,” Newton says, softly and a haltingly, “I said it would help me this time as well? Hermann, I – I need you.”

Rage overcomes Hermann, so hard, worse than he's ever felt before. He pushes Newton's face away from him. “Get out of my room,” he says, turning away. “You've got – no gratitude, no self preservation, you're the most stubborn man – I don't know – why I – love – ” And then he has to stop, because anger has choked him into silence.

There's a long pause. Eventually Newton says, “Please let me stay. Just to get some sleep. And you're right Hermann, I won't ask again. We won't merge with it. We can – be apart, it'll be fine, I'm sure it'll be fine. And it'll be better for you. I mean – for both of us. Eventually. I'm sure it'll be fine.”

The more Newton speaks, the more hollow his words sound. Hermann gets this inkling, just a single cold dark inkling, of how much it cost Newton to say those dismissive words earlier, of just how much of a lie they were. And even as furious as he is, and god, Newton makes him furious, more than anyone else has ever done, he still can't resist groping behind him for Newton's arm, and drawing it over his waist, dragging Newton closer to him.

“You can stay the night,” he says.

 

Newton leaves a few days later, for his new job in Hong Kong, on a helicopter and with gritted teeth, as Tendo reports to Hermann later. Hermann doesn't go to see him off, instead he sits in his room, clinging to himself and using every last scrap of his willpower to not go chasing after Newton by any means necessary. Tendo visits him, loyally bringing food and drink and even locking Hermann in his quarters for a while when it gets really bad, but Tendo is right. After about fourteen hours, the panic starts to dissipate, and within twenty four hours Hermann is feeling normal again, if also significantly more lonely.

 

A week later, on a quiet night, when he is sure of himself, Hermann closes his eyes and searches inside himself for that connection, both to Newton and the Kaiju. They are inextricably linked, so close to each other, and he cannot shut one out without the other, so, taking a deep breath and taking all night, that's what he does. He imagines a solid door, his metal bedroom door, and he closes it over that part of himself and locks it, then double locks it, then welds it shut and boards it shut and buries it deep, as deep as he can go, like he's thrown it into the depths of the Pacific Ocean itself.

For a year, he doesn't contact Newton. He stays at the PPDC, following it in any direction it chooses to go, resurrects it with everyone else when the new budget gets money rolling back in, and he works alone. It's difficult, some days more than others, especially when he has to go through old studies and reports that Newton wrote and he remembers writing them together, bickering over them together, but he sticks to his guns and he doesn't contact Newton once, or ever, ever, resurrect what he has locked behind the door in his head.

Newton never contacts Hermann either.

Some things still remain, perhaps too wound up in his psyche to ever be escaped. He is never as neat and orderly as he was before, he swears far too much, he has a vague interest in Kaiju entrails that was never there previously, and occasionally he calls someone 'dude' and then is horrified at himself for the remainder of the day.

He doesn't touch mushrooms. He doesn't know if he'll love them or hate them and he can't work out which he'd prefer.

 

And then, about a year and a half later, Hermann is signed up to be a guest lecturer at a conference on the Kaiju in Hong Kong, only to see Newton, now Shao's right hand man, is signed up to be one as well. He dithers for a while about sending something, but Newton saves him the trouble of deciding by sending an email himself.

It is blessedly short and simply says, _Want to meet and see what happens?_

It takes Hermann about ten seconds to reply in the affirmative, and then he's filled with a Newton-like excitement for the entire following week.

 

They meet at an outdoor café near the conference centre, a couple of hours before Newton has to give his lecture. Hermann already gave his lecture – to rapturous applause – that morning, but as far as he could see, Newton didn't attend.

Newton is already sitting at a table when Hermann approaches, and Hermann isn't quite ready for the difference awaiting him. Newton has smartened up his act considerably, all smart suit and dark glasses, making Hermann feel even more like he's trapped in the past with his usual clothing choices. But Newton grins and says “Hermann!” when he sees him, and gives him a hug, and if his grin is a little forced at the edges and the hug a little too stiff, Hermann is too happy to see him to care.

They sit at the table and have coffee, and within minutes they're bickering about something, and it's almost like the old days except Newton is a little too loud, a little too showy even for him, like he's trying too hard to be himself. Hermann discounts it as nerves and gets Newton talking about his new job. It sounds promising, and lucrative, and Newton goes into raptures about the salary and the food he can now eat (“Forget the gift hampers, Hermann, this is the real stuff!”), and his new flat.

It all goes a bit skewed when he says, “And of course the view is really why we chose the place,” and Hermann blinks.

“We?” he asks.

Something flickers behind Newton's eyes. “Oh,” he says. “I'm living with someone. Alice.”

Hermann feels something very deep inside him shrivel up into nothing. “Oh,” he echoes. “Right.”

Newton nods, covering his expression by taking a deep drink of his coffee. “You should – you should come for dinner sometime, you could meet her.” He says it very quickly, as if he is rushing the words out, and Hermann nods, but only out of politeness, and Newton seems to falter for a moment and then immediately launches into a monologue about something else and Hermann sits and listens and tries to forget all about _Alice_.

 

He goes to Newton's lecture, because he promised he would, but it's an old lecture he's heard before – he actually helped Newton write some of it – and he isn't really listening. He watches Newton instead, the fast nervy way of talking, far more rattled than it used to be, and notices the man hasn't even taken off his dark glasses in the already darkened auditorium.

Hermann is a scientist, despite Newton's past assertions that he is anything but. He decides to experiment, and closes his eyes against the lecture to concentrate. Slowly, very slowly and carefully, he digs into that part of himself, the part as deep as the Pacific Ocean, and draws out that door, the battered shut, welded door, and painstakingly he works to open it, every key turned in the lock, until, with a rush, he opens it.

There is nothing there. It is all silence and small puffs of blue mist, curling into thin air. In the real world, Hermann is aware the talking has stopped and opens his eyes again. Newton has frozen, halfway through a slide and is staring up at him. Hermann stares back, unsure what to think, because there's nothing there, there's no way Newton could sense what he has done, surely, and then Newton blinks and goes on with his lecture as smoothly as if he had never stopped before.

Hermann locks the empty space up and consigns it back into the ocean in his head. Just in case.

 

They talk, one last time, on that visit. Newton comes up to where Hermann is packing his bags at the end of the lecture, grinning. “What did you think?” he asks.

“Very good,” Hermann says politely and Newton grins, obviously aware that Hermann has heard the lecture a million times.

“You're such a liar,” he says, “I've missed you.”

The words should cut deep into Hermann but they seem so fake somehow that they do nothing at all to him. He stands as tall as he can and looks Newton in the eyes.

“I have to know,” he says. “Newton, have you ever tried to get in – Drift contact – with that Kaiju brain?”

Hermann can't see his eyes because they're behind the dark glasses, but the rest of Newton's face seizes up, then smooths out blandly. “No,” he says. “Of course not. I said I wouldn't.” He shifts, as if suddenly unsure of himself, then says, “I don't even think of our Drift connection now.”

Hermann nods, feeling himself stiffen, and says, “Good. Tendo was right then. That's good.”

“Good.” Newton echoes, and then, oddly, seems to relax altogether, and reaches for Hermann's hand automatically, rubbing their thumbs together. “I've missed you,” he says quietly, in quite a different way to the way he said it just seconds ago. “Make sure you stay in touch, yeah?”

“Of course,” says Hermann, and it's on the tip of his tongue to ask Newton to come back to the PPDC, except that somehow he feels like Newton wouldn't belong anymore, that he looks and seems too out of things to return back to the clunky old comfort of the PPDC. So he doesn't ask – he takes his leave and he doesn't ask, and he doesn't contact Newton for months after the conference.

After all, Newton has his new world now – and Alice – and his new life. There's not much point getting back in touch with such a changed man.

 

Several years later, when Newton stands in the Shao headquarters and reveals his/the Kaiju's plans to destroy the world yet again, Hermann realises exactly what he has done.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just my idea of how Newton ended up leaving the PPDC, I rather liked the idea that he was essentially forced into it and how this wouldn't have helped his relationship with Hermann or his addiction to the Kaiju in the slightest. I've only been in the fandom for a few weeks, so if this contradicts any Pacific Rim lore...just pretend that doesn't exist!  
> Also this was written in one go and finished at 5am, so please forgive any errors!


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